Jack's Betrayal
by twink1
Summary: There are two characters in this story - Jack and Riddick. Mostly revolves around Jack, though - there will be more Riddick later if the story is continued. -_- R for a little language.


Author's note: my first fanfic. And perhaps it won't be the end. I tend to not like endings like this myself so if people review and say that they want something different, then it will be done!  
  
Disclaimer: neither Jack nor Riddick are mine...   
  
Most of my life is spent juking and weaving through the shadows of darkened alleyways and skyscrapers. I'm constantly running - it's like my life is in 'fast forward' mode, never time to rest or breathe. This time I'm not just running through the twisted hell that is my mind when it's ravaged with the nightmares and the memories of days gone by, though. It's through the real world and all the sick fucks that inhabit it. See, before - well, after the crash that is, I was living with Imam - at least I had home. I had something that somewhat resembled a normal life. Ha, the old Jack would've hated the idea. Hell, that's half the reason she left, to find adventure, something new. The other half was due to other family matters. Well, of course there was no hope in my 'home', in my life that somewhat had a bearing of normalcy. Not after Riddick left me. He didn't just leave me, though. He died. He died for me...   
  
//Her heart was pounding and her lungs were about to explode. There was a fire raging in her chest and she was gasping for breath. Her legs were a frenzy of motion beneath her and they fled fast through the night.   
  
Riddick was in front of her, running equally as fast, never looking back. She knew that he could run faster but he didn't. Amazingly, he didn't leave her behind. It was at that moment that she realized that all this time they had been together, he could've dropped her, dropped her at any second.   
  
God knows it would make his life easier. She realized how selfish she'd been. This giant, she cared for this man. It would kill her if something happened to him -- she never let herself acknowledge the fact that even her mere presence put him in great danger.   
  
There was a seedy apartment complex, adjacent to their crumbling, grey building. Jack started to get so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she didn't see the sniper poking his head from one of the windows of those apartments beside them before it was too late. His gun was aimed at Riddick's head. She saw him, bony knuckles, with skin stretched taught and tight over them. Fingers tensed, flexing in nervous anticipation of the shot that would make or break his career - his face was twisted in concentration.  
  
'No,' thought Jack. 'We've come too far...'   
  
She set her jaw resolutely, fighting back the impulse to run in the opposite direction, fighting back the fear of death. She had escaped it on that planet when the flying monsters came after them and tricked and eluded it during her existence with Riddick but this was definite. There was no clever trick to evade death this time, no escaping it, and no turning back. Death was in the form of a little metal bullet that was about to come flying out the sleek black shaft of a sniper rifle. While running Jack positioned herself directly behind Riddick, covering his back. She had already let so many others die, there was no way she was going to just sit there and let it happen again.   
  
"Stop fucking around, kid, this isn't a game!" Riddick growled. Seconds later he heard the shot as it left the barrel of the rifle. With lightning quick speed he turned, still running, grabbed Jack's shoulders and enveloped her in his arms, becoming a protective shield. She fell backwards, Riddick landing on top of her.   
  
He had his goggles on and as they hit the ground blood streamed out of his mouth and onto her shirt. She could feel warm blood on her stomach where he had been shot.  
  
"GO, kid," he commanded, with the barest hint of a wince. "No," she whispered, shaken. She didn't think it was really possible that he could die so easily. He had survived a thousand carnivorous white fanged monsters yet he couldn't survive a single small metal bullet.   
  
Even as his bronze skin began to pale and his breaths grew shorter, she still couldn't believe it - she thought he'd be with there forever, she couldn't picture a life without him. He was struggling to keep consciousness.   
  
"Get out of here, Jack. I'll find you, just go..."   
  
The entire scene had unfolded in a matter of chaotic seconds. Riddick's body fell lifeless onto hers, his dead weight nailing her down. "Riddick, get up, get up Riddick." she pleaded. "Don't be selfish. I know you want to leave and be with Carolyn, but I need you, please, oh God, please," she cried tearlessly.  
  
With a great amount of effort she managed to roll him over. "It was supposed to be me that died, not you... that bullet was mine," she said, brushing her lips once, softly, over his. She could taste the blood that had come from his mouth-his life-as it emptied in a warm pool of crimson around his body.   
  
She heard yelling in the distance - police. She tried frantically to rise, her legs working against her. It felt as if she had two thousand pound weights in her knees.   
  
She heard the shouts getting nearer but as she rose she realized that her dogtags had gotten stuck on his shirt. Her father's dogtags, the only thing she ever had of her other life. With shaking hands she pulled them from around her neck and sprinted up and away, leaving them behind with his limp body.//   
  
I didn't think I would be able to go on. I mean, for what? Why should I go on? I lived for him. Big words for a little kid, right? Well, the truth was, I didn't have my old life to live for - only the promise of a new one.   
  
There wasn't a lot of logic in my actions, but there was an immense amount of feeling. And to a young kid who's lost everything, logic and reason don't make a big impact when it comes to the safety of a loved one. But I didn't even know Riddick.   
  
Well, I knew his heart, not his brain... but I was so sure, so sure that there was more there. More than any psychologist would ever be able to see - they were too busy trying to look past the silvery, deceiving eyes of the killer that they didn't see what was right in front of them.   
  
It was a part of him that had never developed, it was just waiting there. It was that raw part of him that's in everyone. The part that is forever untouched by coldness and cruelty. The part that everyone gave up on. Most people forget that it's there and convince themselves that it doesn't exist anymore... some have never even seen it at all.   
  
Well, I could see it in him and I wanted desperately to take his hand, the hand of the child that was abused, like me. Much worse, but like me all the same. Looking back it seems kind of ridiculous. Picturing myself next to Riddick, walking side by side, a foot shorter than him, actually believeing that everything I did had an impact on the world... believeing that I could wipe away all the pain and hurt and sadness that he had. You know, years aren't the only things that determine how old you are. It's experience. After that trip on the Hunter-Gratzner I learned this. Going into it, I thought that I actually knew something about the world. And then I grew up. Over the span of a day I grew up, that little kid yearning for freedom and eager for adventure left behind with the darkness and blood.   
  
I've been hiding in a small city for the past couple of days - staying low key and keeping to the shadows mostly. Small cities aren't great for hiding out in, there aren't big enough crowds to 'lose' yourself in. I guess I should've thought of that before I came. Well, I must say I've been getting one hell of a tour out of this. Seen scum holes I never thought existed... Don't know where I'll go next, if I go anywhere. I'm getting tired of this fucking game.   
  
Right now I'm in an alley. It's dark out but I can't see the stars tonight - too many city lights. I can feel it coming closer - death. Again. Seems like I've been running from the damned thing my whole life... from that stealthy predator. If I ever stay in one place too long, it finds me. Amazingly enough I've been faster than it has, I've avoided it.  
  
It, it, it. What the hell is it? 'It' is the ranger or merc, if you will, that was nailed onto my ass to track me down and kill me.   
  
I guess I should make a correction to what I said before. Riddick didn't die, I only thought he did.   
  
It came as a surprise to me. I was sleeping, having a dream - a very bizarre one in which I was surrounded in shadows, I was drowning in them. Yes, shadows. The shadows turned into jet black snakes and I could feel their scales, smooth, rubber-like, all around me, brushing against my skin. Their eyes were like rubies, blood red. Normally, I'm not afraid of snakes, I mean, big deal so what? After those fucking aliens who's gonna be afraid of some snakes? But I was afraid.   
  
The fear was tangible, I could taste it in my mouth, feel it coursing through my veins, hear it pounding in the halls of my mind. It was the fear that they would bite me. That they had poisonous black fangs tucked away somewhere. Then I felt them start tightening around my body, cutting off my circulation and air, wrapping around my neck. And it wasn't even necessarily the snakes that scared me as much as the feelings I had.   
  
I felt like I had to escape or something would get me... it was like I knew that there was this impending doom bearing down on me, following me, and I just felt this absolute urgency to run away.   
  
Then I woke up. I remember it clearly. I sat up in my bed, heart pounding. And I realized how cold I was. That was what tipped me off. The dream made me sweat and a breeze blew through the window, sending a chill down my spine. I knew that I hadn't opened the window that night. My 'parents' wouldn't have opened it, they didn't spend more time around me than they needed to. And plus, it was twenty degrees outside. The thought was a little unnerving. Then I felt it. Like something, someone was watching me. My heart, which had been drumming so wildly, so loudly, nearly stopped beating.   
  
I glanced over at the clock - it was around three. There was something on the desk. It was dogtags. My dogtags. The ones that had gotten caught on Riddick's jacket the night he got shot.   
  
The damn police must've gotten them, I thought... how else would they be there? I picked them up, to make sure they were mine, thinking 'this is it, this is it, this is the last day, hour, minute of my life.' I knew it was wierd that no one had come after me, I mean, I'd been idiotic enough to leave evidence, complete with finger prints et cetera, latched onto Richard B. Riddick's jacket...   
  
Then I heard it. It started off as a low rumble, quiet but distinct. It grew into the deep laughter that used to send chills up the old Jack's spine. Oh it sent chills up my spine, except this time they were different, they were chills of fear. Like the fear in my dream. It felt like the blood in my veins was freezing beneath my skin. It sounded like the same laugh, gravely, deep. But then again it sounded entirely different. Sure when Riddick laughed it was usually mocking or cynical but this was... this was different. The effect it had on me was like someone scraping his nails slowly across a chalkboard.   
  
Then there was a pause after the laughter ceased. "Hey Jack," said the voice. It was a taunting voice.   
  
Wasn't I confused? Hell yes. I didn't even think it was him at first - I had seen him die - I had watched the blood of his very body as it seeped from the wound in his side... the wound he'd taken for me.   
  
Then I heard the voice and began to have second thoughts. All I needed to do was turn around - just turn around and look, simple as that. "What, no hello for an old friend?" he asked. Then the laugh again. "Ah, Jack, how have you been? Enjoying your life? I hope you have."   
  
Nothing. How could I enjoy my fucking life without Riddick, without you, I wanted to say.   
  
"Because your time's up," he finished.   
  
"Why, who says?"   
  
"The government," he said.   
  
"The governement? Since when did you ever work with 'the government'?" I asked. There was a little jeer in my voice. I couldn't keep it back, I didn't even try.   
  
"Oh, it's amazing what they can do. Can give you a new life just as easily as they can take it away. Maybe I should tell you, they are willing to let you go if you do a few things for them," he said. He sounded like a fucking telemarketer.  
  
"And if I wasn't willing?" I asked. The governement... a few things... it was all too vague.  
  
"Well," he smirked, "that's why I'm here. If you don't accept then I get to kill you." Like it was a privilege. I get to kill you... To this day I remember that feeling. It was worse than what I felt after I thought he had died... it was betrayal.   
  
"I'll give you some time to think about it, Jack," he said.   
  
"Fuck you," I said. I didn't turn around, I just closed my eyes, waiting for the blow, the shot, the knife in my back - I waited patiently but it never came. Lucky me, huh? No, that was just the start of my journey through hell.   
  
Why do I have the feeling that he could catch me any day? It's like a cat and mouse game. He's playing with me. I want to give up. The one thing I have learned in my life is this: evil ultimately prevails in the end. Riddick, the one I knew, he's dead now. His body is alive but his soul is lost.   
  
"You're forgetting, Jack, I never had a soul." I can hear his voice clear in my mind, echoing a thousand times over. A shudder racks my body as I think about this. I know I will die soon, whether it's by my own hand or his, and I am calm. Sad but calm. And at the same time I can't help but laugh at the twisted irony of it all. Once my savior from death, now my savior from life...  
  
***  
  
I've been here for three days - giving him time to catch up. I got a hotel room, beachfront. I've been living it up and even swimming in the ocean a little. A permanent life like this would be too luxurious, too unreal... ha, not to mention too expensive. Eventually I'd have to go back to the alleys and the way of life on the streets - a tiring and tedious kind of life. But better than no life at all?   
  
No, no more thoughts about that. Now should I make it easy on Riddick, go wait in a dark abandoned alleyway or street? I wonder what will happen. I hope that it's quick. I decided - I won't take my own life, although that's really what I'm doing, isn't it? Giving up? To die by my own hand or by a killer's?  
  
Which is more noble? Neither is - the most noble thing to do would be to live but that's no longer an option. I dress, haphazardly throwing on some pants a shirt.   
  
Then I go out onto the beach and walk, farther and farther down the shore until eventually all the houses die off and there is nothing but sand and ocean and me. It's night by then and I can see the stars clearly. Sparkling and dancing in the midnight sky. Thousands of cold, jeering white eyes watching me from above, laughing at my fate.   
  
I can't hear him but I know he's there - he's somewhere close, watching me.  
  
What's this on my face? Tears? I wipe the tears away, my nail scrapes my skin, drawing a little trickle of blood. I feel anger towards myself, towards my inner weakness, which is now showing itself on the outside, in the form of tears.   
  
And well if it isn't the blood demon himself off in the distance, standing in my line of travel. I'm walking on the sandy white shores to my death, to my savior, to my love.   
  
My love... I get closer and closer. He's just standing there like a ghost, a dark angel. And finally I reach him. Toe to toe. This is the first time I see him since the night he 'died.' Ha. Died... He looks the same. Then there's a sigh and a smile and a hand on my shoulder as if he knows that he is the angel of death.   
  
"It's time, Jack," he tells me. "Let's go," he says. And my heart drops because it almost, almost reminds me of the times before he was taken from me when we would just talk...  
  
'Go where... will you go with me,' I want to plead. "One last thing, Riddick," I ask him. He nods. "Can I see your eyes one more time?"   
  
But he seems to hesitate. Then he takes off the goggles and the light of the stars is refracted a million times in his shimmering silver eyes, almost as eerie as the shattered reflection of the moon on the sea. And I lose myself in the dancing orbs, searching, grasping for a thread of what was there before.   
  
God what I wouldn't give to sink into his arms, his heart again. That black snake. Just to wrap myself in him. I take his hand, he kisses me on the forehead, then I feel a quick stinging on my neck. I see my own blood spill forth and I look back up at the eyes once more - one more blessed time.   
  
Then everything goes black... 


End file.
